[EXPRESSO] Waiting For The Barbarians (2019) | Attila, Scourge Of Odd

Based on the novel of the same by J. M. Coetzee, Waiting For The Barbarians is one of the recent italian productions made with the international market in mind, with Robert Pattinson….but also Johnny Depp, who is still getting work, despite everything.

Let’s leave it at that for the sake of the review, ok?

Taking place in an indefined frontier outpost near the border of an unknown empire (even though they look like british frontier soldiers), the movie follows the story of the Magister, who is close to retirement as Colonel Joll arrives, tasked with security and gathering intel on the “barbarians”. But as he outrights searches these people to capture and torture them in public,tries to stir a full-out war, the Magister has second thoughts, gets accused of treason, etc.

And it’s a frustrating one to review, because there is ambition, the cast is good (mostly), but the movie isn’t as “deep” as it thinks, it’s a story about “the horrors of war and the monstrous need for an enemy to exist”, that is obvious right away, for every character in the movie… beside the protagonist, the Magistrate, who seems to be surprised by anything that happens, and makes you wonder how he can possibly be so absurdly naive.

Way more than he’s intended to be, to the point of it being laughably cartoonish and dissonant with the otherwise more realistic scenes of torture, corruption and.. well anything. And the movie is also slowly paced, like its main protagonist it spends ages yet again re-iterating on the beyond obvious messages and themes. Doesn’t help that Depp also plays a cartoonish “nazi frontier general” villain, even more caricatural than usual.

Shame, because it has some inspired moments, it really does, but in the end it’s kind of a mess.

[EXPRESSO] Super Mario 35 NSWDDL | Mario Royale

Ah, the Mario battle royale game nobody asked for, but it’s here regardless to celebrate the series 35^th anniversary, and like the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection, it will be only available until the 31^th of March 2021.

That’s… a way to make people excited about investing time in a thing it will die by design in 6 months. Also, it’s an exclusive for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, available for “free” in the same way Tetris 99 was.

And the game it structured in a similar fashion, just applying it to 35 players with the gameplay of Super Mario Bros on the NES, so everyone starts from a SMB stage with 35 seconds on the timer and can hinder the other players by defeating enemies, which get you extra seconds and sends the defeated goons to appear and try to hamper the other players. Coins can be stored and used to purchase power-ups before, or get power-ups from a “?” block if you get at least 20 coins on that run.

There are timed special challenges, a training mode and a standard ranking system that give you more icons for the profile, but not much else.

And it’s… ok, i guess? I don’t hate it, but it’s not that compelling either, after some matches you feel kinda done already, frankly. There is something to it, not that much, and while it’s clear players that already have amassed enough coins can use that to keep an advantage, you can still win and use some strategies like in Tetris 99, especially when you unlock the later levels (with tougher enemies) of SMB.

Cute idea to celebrate the 35^th Mario anniversary, yes, but it won’t keep your attention up for long, almost by design, given it will become useless in 6 months.

[EXPRESSO] Brawl Brothers SNES | OH, Maize!

Played via the SNES – Nintendo Switch Online’s service.

Since i reviewed the last game in the Rushing Beat trilogy (as in, what became of it when Jaleco brought it over as The Peace Keepers), might as well do the second one, or – more appropriately – the western release of Rushing Beat Ran. But since it’s an emulated game, the old code for playing the japanese version works here as well.

And if you go to The Peace Keepers back to Brawl Brothers, you’ll find it hard to believe this one came before, because it’s noticeably the better game, right away it’s obvious, as absurd as it is.

That said, while the gameplay is decent, it apes Final Fight , yes, it also has 4 stages, each being twice as long than usual, long for the sake of it, without the enemy variety to fully sustain it (even for the era)… AND if the pacing wasn’t hampered by the maze-like sections. On paper they should spice things up, make the game less mindless, but they are just obtuse and stupid, as the level design doesn’t comunicate or hints at the “right way”, but its quite happy to still tell you to “GO=>” even when it will lead you into looping into the same ¾ nearly identical corridors.

So 15 minutes in and you will have to either keep trying to access the sewer’s doors in random order or go look up a guide if you wanna save some time. More baffling, this “maze crap”, while it bogs down an other decent – if flawed – game for the time, isn’t even a complete deal breaker, as it applies to just 2 specific sections of the whole game … and it wasn’t even in the Japanese version to begin with.

[EXPRESSO] The Peace Keepers SNES | The Suplexing Complex

Played via the SNES- Nintendo Switch Online’s service.

And i gotta say, despite Nintendo handling this service.. in a totally Nintendo way, sometimes there are surprises, like this forgotten SNES beat em up by Jaleco, actually the third of the Rushing Beat trilogy (which also includes Rival Turf and Brawl Brothers, the latter already released on the service), at least it was originally. I’d say this is a fairly obscure release, as i never even heard of its existence, even by name.

Playing it, i realized why it slipped into obscurity so easily. Just plain ol’ crap in a market – at the time – saturated with tons of titles like that, often better.

It’s hard to say The Peace Keepers is “bad”, as it pretty much plays like Final Fight (aside from a plot that throws movie clichès AND literary references into the pot, with mutants, villains named Iago and places called Ozymandias Island), but it’s not a fast paced affair. Also, the combination of slightly stiff controls and the screen never scrolling properly to the right leads to you dashing into enemies’ fists, not that the game really ever throws tons of foes at you. Which is “good” because each takes more hits than it should to go down in a game like this, making the throws (already a bit too efficient than punches, in a brawler) pretty much mandatory to get anywhere.

Branching paths leading to different bosses and endings are nice but aren’t enough to make the story seems more than a jumbled sequence of scenes. And for some stupid reason the game by default just has the sound effects and ambient noises, i almost went the whole game wondering if the game had no actual music. It does, but you have to change a setting in the options.

[EXPRESSO] Missing Link (2019) | Le Tour Du Sasquatch

Definitely one of the movies i’ve been looking forward to this year (again, came out last year in the US, but not here), always up to see what Laika Studios are doing next, and Kubo was great.

This latest feature is set in 1886, and sees cryptozoologist ante-litteram Sir Lionel Frost respond to a misterious letter that hints at the possibility of finding the fabled “missing link”, and embarks on a quest, as finding it would also give him recognition from his fellow adventurers, including his rival.

So the search for sasquatch begins in the Pacific North West…. and then begins again when Sir Lionel finds out who sent the letter, and why.

The plot offers an interesting variation on the old adventures flicks where British guys went around the world to “discover” and “civilize-colonize” all they could get their cane on, while maintining the old clichès like the bar fights, assassins sent after them by the main villain that epitomizes the old world of arrogant status-quo.

Not that Lionel himself is that much better, but it’s all to feed into the theme of family and what comes with a ugly duckling type story, one featuring a lovably awkward sasquatch and great characters.

You can see where the plot is going, but it’s a fun ride, the character designs and stopmotion animation are top notch as you would expected, the art direction amazing, the slapstick is quite decent, too. At times the dialogue tries to be a little too clever, but it’s mostly quite well and smartly written, just throwing a couple of puerile jokes because it has to (being a kids movie). Oddly some of the funniest moments are quite simple, in contrast to some of the more complex verbal gags that don’t fully land.

It’s pretty good, yes.

[EXPRESSO] Jack In The Box (2019) | Spring Daemon

I’ll be honest, i walked into this one expecting a turd of sorts.

I mean, it’s not like this promises more than it does, it’s called Jack In The Box and it’s about an evil Jack In The Box. As in, the clown in the box is evil, because it can’t be a pierrot or an evil possessed figure from Commedia Dell’Arte, something that isn’t your usual choice of evil clown. Then again, this specific angle isn’t overdone… i think.

The plot deals with a new museum curator, Casey, arriving in the little english town of Hawthorne, and while wading through the “lost and found” inventory, he notices an odd box with some mystical engraving, appearing to be a creepy jack-in-the-box toy from the victorian era. But as more mysterious murders keep occurings, the more Casey learns of old tales related to the “jack-in-the-box” being coinceived to contain and unleash demons, and of a previous murder related to the box…

Directed and written by Lawrence Fowler, who previously directed some shorts and something called Curse Of The Witch’s Doll, which looks as generic as this one. And there is a sequel to this one already in pre-production, set to release in 2021.

And….i’m not against a sequel, there is something here (even if the “jack-in-the-box” demon lore is a bit silly, just a tad), and for a relatively low budget independent british horror film, this is definitely more than presentable for theathers, the monster design, make-up and effects are quite convincing, and the museum setting is a nice touch. Acting is decent, to boot.

Shame the direction and script are not as strong, kinda generic, pedestrian at times, with some twists seen coming a mile away, flashbacks to things that happened 10 minutes before, and an ending that aggressively sets up a sequel.

[EXPRESSO] #Alive (2020) | SNS Zombies

No cinema for me this week, so guess i’ll dust off Netflix, see and review this new korean zombie movie, which comes with the hashtag already built in the title. The plot sees a streamer in Seoul waking up and logging on to do some online gaming (he’s shown playing PUBG), only to hear people chatting of something weird being broadcast on tv, and soon enough even in the very streets below him, as a zombie virus of sorts spreads.

He’s forced to barricade himself home, trying to use his tech savviness to understand what is exactly going on outside, all made harder by scarce rations and social medias (or the reception for phones) not working most the time.

It’s better than i expected, and being set in “the now” you get to see fun stuff like zombie (of the running and “contorsionist” variety) getting attacked by drones’s eliblades, and there are some cool action scenes, production values are fairly decent-good, same for the special effects. Problem is, there isn’t too much to the plot, there’s enough, but nothing special, and after a fairly fast start, the movie suffers from pacing problems.

I understand it would be more realistic to see characters barricade themselves into their apartments, and while this is to feed into the “surviving days and days into a zombie apocalypse”, this kinda backfires, as the plot doesn’t really moves forward or backwards, and it’s not until the third act where it picks up again. Thankfully the characters are likeable, given how much time you spend watching them try to communicate or concoct a plan, but they’re not good enough to gloss over the fairly typical twists and turns of the narrative. Not even with some cool “hip” music.

Decent, worth a watch, for sure, but nothing special.

[EXPRESSO] The Vigil (2019) | Ghost Orthodox

Directed and written by Keith Thomas (in his feature directorial debut here), this Blumhouse production tells of Yakov, a down on his luck fellow, who is contacted by a rabbi of his former Orthodox Jewish community, offering him 400 dollars to execute the rite of “shoimer”, consisting in keeping vigil to a recently deceased man, comforting his soul with prayers for a whole night.

The person who was supposed to keep vigil run away, but Yakov isn’t worried, as he has performed the rite a lot in the past, so he accepts, and enters the house of the departed, the recluse and odd Ruben Litvak, where the old widow is also resting. But as the night proceeds, strange events start happening,Yakov starts learning more of Ruben, his past, and demons from his own past start haunting him…

It’s an interesting premise that delivers an intriguing angle to this type of possession/exorcism movies, has a likeable main lead, great atmosphere and suspense, with an interesting choice for the entity (taken from Jewish folklore and demonology, i assume), and some ok scares, even though they’re definitely not the selling point. A simple premise that makes full use of the small house scenario, executed with elegance, sadly a bit lacking in the story department, or in the backstories to the characters (the Holocaust is involved), which are not bad, but are definitely the less inspired parts of the movie, the more typical.

Overall, though, The Vigil it’s more than sum of its parts, and definitely a good, really solid supernatural horror, a chiller, to be more specific, with some good visuals that mines religious elements from a different religion, instead of some brand of Christianity, and from a fairly ignorant prospective, they make for something you don’t see represented often in horror.

Recommended.

[EXPRESSO] Blazing Chrome NSWDDL | Olympus Has Fallen

21XX A.D.

Capitalization of vaguely remembered decades run rampant in the dystopian future where a war against “ze machines” is unfolding. As humanity last stand, the last survivors of a suicide mission, with the main characters designs clearly – “just because we like it” – made to evoke Appleseed’s Dunen and Briareos, you’ll have to attack the enemy HQ in a desperate, last bout of run n gun action.

From the developers of Oniken and Odallus comes a surprisingly good retro 2D run n gun, one that not only evokes the 16 bits days of yore via the usual (but also quite crisp) retro aesthetic, but also because it’s basically Contra III (the weapons will make it even more obvious), with an evasive roll manouver and a Metal Slug-style close quarters knife attack added for good measure. But still, a very good recreation of Contra with enough in it to not just make it a “clone”, made by people that know what to keep from the classics, and where concede to modernity in order to avoid fidelity over quality.

It’s a 6 missions/level affair, but they’re well designed, quite packed and keep the tradition of changing things up with motorcycle sequences, mechsuits, faux-3D shooting sequences, etc. It’s the kind of game that is by design not particularly long, but it’s also very challenging, hard but never soulcrushing difficult, you always feel you can win if you try again, learn and improve. It also gets the arcade type of replayability perfectly, and you’re given various difficuly settings that add or remove “comodities” suck as saving or extra lives. Add in extra playable characters, boss rush mode, and even options for speedrun, and i really can’t recommend this enough.

Shoutout to my buddy Chaosknight69 on Backloggery for recommending this one.

Loved it!

[EXPRESSO] The New Mutants (2020) | Teen Mutant Nightmares

FIY: seen in a theather in Italy with social distancing measures, mask and stuff.

Aside from the bad timing (at least for US viewers), i’m glad it’s finally out, as The New Mutants had a troubled production history, and was in development hell for years, enough that i wouldn’t have been surprised if some months ago Disney pulled the plug on theproject all together. And it’s a theatherical release because of the years old deal (Fox was still un-absorbed) that forced Disney to put in cinemas first.

Quite likely the truly last remnant from the X-Men movie series as conceived by Fox, this is an interesting proposition even if it didn’t have this unfortunate production history, because it’s a superhero horror movie, we definitely don’t get many of those.

The plot centers around 5 young mutants, who have been brought to a special asylum in order to help them get a better control over their powers… but it soon turns out they have been locked, to be studied and observed. The group will have to confront their fears and unite their efforts if they wanna escape from the mysterious doctor that keep them locked like rats.

A lot of articles drew comparisons to the Nightmare In Elm Street III: Dream Warriors.. which i didn’t saw, but even with some general horror knowledge, these comparisons make sense, in ways i won’t explain because inherently spoilers. But even so, in this form sponged of direct connections with the X-Men movie series, The New Mutants is a pretty cool movie that balances well the teen drama (and romance) with the superhero and horror elements. Teen horror, i feel the need to point that out, so don’t expect much in the way of gore, but you get some cool action scenes and likeable characters.